Remembering and Choosing Loving Presence (retreat talk) (2017-12-28) - We are conditioned to go into a limbic trance—an emotional reactivity to life within and around us—that keeps us identified with a limited, separate sense of self. This talk helps us to identify the flags of trance, and to bring a healing attention that frees us to live our moments with creativity, wisdom and love. Includes the RAIN of Self-Compassion. (from the 2017 IMCW New Year's Retreat)

Meditation: Basic Body and Breath Scan – (2017-12-28) – from the first morning of the IMCW 2017 New Year retreat, Tara offers an introductory meditation with a body scan, bringing focus to the breath, sounds, then resting in awareness.

My Religion is Kindness – Part 2 ~ Authentic kindness must include the life within us. These two talks examine the movement from an armored to a free and loving heart. The first looks at how we can awaken from the trance of unworthiness and establish a genuinely caring relationship with our inner life. In the second we explore how self-kindness awakens us to the heartspace that naturally includes all of life.

Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/.

2017-12-20 - Meditation: “Yes” to Life (2017-12-20) - This guided practice awakens a relaxed and friendly attention that rests in the breath and opens to whatever is arising. We deepen that presence with the intention to truly say "Yes" to experience, allowing life to be just as it is.

Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/.

Meditation: Transforming Fear - This guided practice invites us to identify a situation where we habitually become anxious or fearful, and then to explore bringing mindfulness and self-compassion to where we feel most vulnerable. By engaging fear with an embodied and caring presence, we discover the fearless heart that includes but is not contracted by fear.

My Religion is Kindness - Part 1 (2017-12-13) - Authentic kindness must include the life within us. These two talks examine the movement from an armored to a free and loving heart. The first looks at how we can awaken from the trance of unworthiness and establish a genuinely caring relationship with our inner life. In the second we explore how self-kindness awakens us to the heartspace that naturally includes all of life.

Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/.

Meditation: Boundless, Loving Awareness(2017-12-13) - Learning how to recognize and rest in spaciousness, allows us to discover the love and wakefulness that is our source. This meditation guides us to discover interior space, exterior space, and then the continuous space that is suffused with awareness. We then explore how that awareness is experienced as heartspace—vast, illuminated and tender.

Awakening from the Trance of Fear-Part 2 (2017-12-06) - While fear is a natural and intelligent emotion, when fear goes on overdrive, we are in a trance of fear that contracts our body, heart and mind. Our resistance to the direct experience of fear sustains the trance and leads to decisions and behaviors that harm ourselves and others. Only by facing fear with mindfulness and compassion can we awaken from trance and reconnect with our capacity for creativity and full aliveness, wisdom and love.

Your support enables us to continue to offer these talks and meditations freely. If you value them, I hope you will consider offering a donation at this time at www.tarabrach.com/donation/.

Meditation: Alert Inner Stillness (2017-12-06) - Behind the changing sounds, sensations, feelings and thoughts is an alert inner stillness that is purely aware. This meditation begins with accessing the receptivity of a smile, awakening through the body and opening the senses. We then sense the background of awareness and relax back to inhabit that wholeness. When the mind is distracted, the pathway home is a relaxing back, and the essential practice is non-doing, allowing life to be just as it is.

Awakening from the Trance of Fear - Part 1 (2017-11-29) - While fear is a natural and intelligent emotion, when fear goes on overdrive, we are in a trance of fear that contracts our body, heart and mind. Our resistance to the direct experience of fear sustains the trance and leads to decisions and behaviors that harm ourselves and others. Only by facing fear with mindfulness and compassion can we awaken from trance and reconnect with our capacity for creativity and full aliveness, wisdom and love.